Five minute idea

Twenty-five minutes to write

Editing three hours

Only five hundred dead.

Is five hundred better than

Yesterday’s thousand

Birds chirp, sirens sound.

Disregarding the blue lights

They are pulling worms

Thaw arrives seeping

Sucking detritus downwards.

A little snowdrop

river statues stand

a man in waders builds them

inexplicably

last night’s fallen snow

becomes a misty grey day

slowly dripping by

A midnight garden

Moonlit snow and deep shadows

Luminous eyes watch

A women keeps hens

She dyes her hair green, and mourns

The loss of her son

He lives in the woods

In plain sight he hides from view

So feral his skills

The shelter is gone

Twigs and branches disassembled

Of the man, no trace